September 1, 2010

           I moved into my new home for the next 11 months.  Pfaffenwaldring 50 A 20144.  Not a tongue twister or anything.

I was lucky enough to have my parents with me to help me get to Stuttgart with all of my luggage- much luckier than some of the other students, whose bags overpowered them completely.  Trying to fit a year’s worth of your stuff into one checked bag and one carry-on was not a possibility for me.  So I showed up, on the side of the road, with 9 bags (don’t ask me how that happened) and 2 parents and had NO idea where to go.  After walking all the way around the dorms Pfaffenhof I and II, and going to the wrong hausmeister first, I finally found mine.   Too bad he wasn’t in his office on move-in day.  We managed, after two failed attempts, to decipher his handwriting and call him.  From what I could understand, he said he’d be there in 30 minutes.  Great, now what do we do on the side of the road for 30 minutes?

My father and I decided to go find the “Internationales Zentrum” while we waited.  Finally, some instructions on what to do!  I went upstairs and was immediately greeted by the international students’ staff.  They handed me a giant folder full of stuff and told me to bring it back with me at 2pm for an “orientation”.  We walked back to where we left my mother on the side of the road and proceeded to drag all of the bags closer to the entrance to my apartment.  Then we waited again.  Another boy showed up looking for the hausmeister as well.  He started swiftly speaking to me in German, and I felt like a deer caught in headlights.  I had no idea what he was saying.  The one semester of German I took two years ago wasn’t going to cut it. 

I finally got into my apartment after an hour (punctual Germans, huh?), and I went to that orientation at 2pm.  I was greeted by a Polish couple sitting next to me.  Ewa and Maciej.  They seemed quiet and a bit reserved, but nice.  Thank you Facebook for helping me spell their names!  That is one of the hardest parts about meeting international students.  At least in the US, you’ve heard of the popular names before, so even if you get the spelling wrong, you at least know what their name is.  It hasn’t been that easy for me here.  Some friends that I’ve met: Ewa, Maciej, Aleksi, Magdalena, Elif, Tunc, Øyvind, Aida, Jaakko, Ashwin, Sijia Ma.